


Thunderstorms

by ivanolix



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Canon - TV, Canon Compliant, Fear, Gen, Gen Fic, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Pain, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunderstorms

You were a little girl once. Hair finer than thread, will not much stronger. Each death hit you like a thunderstorm, flipping your world upside down and making you dive beneath the bed covers, lip wibbling with each aftershock of thunder. People die—it's part of life. That's what your parents told you. Before you were old enough to learn to believe them, they dragged you away.

The Mord'Sith gave you the truth, that only the weak die. Pain was etched into your skin and bones with the finesse of any artist, and the fear of death was pounded to dust that flew away on the first wind. They gave you the hint of death in a smooth red wrapper so that you could learn that only the fear of it would kill you. Death was for the weak, fear was for the weak, and pain meant you were strong enough to live. Your thread-fine hair was pulled back, twisted, knotted into a braid that could withstand a battle with all its heat and rage. It was a symbol of how your weaknesses were transformed.

Then you returned the favor. When Lord Rahl sent you to battle, you didn't expect much. Soldiers hacked and slashed with wild desperation, broad moves to cover as much ground as possible, hoping to survive without any pain at all. Pain was just the first step on the road to death for them, the pathetic idiots, and they knew it enough for their throat to seize up at the thought of it. They didn’t even deserve the name of soldier. Agiels were simple, elegant, and compact enough that you heard each death scream in its unique quality. Your lip curved in admiration of death, of how it cleansed weakness that could not be transformed by pain. The weak died by the thousands—not all by your hand, but at least at the direction of your will.

Thunderstorms struck your Mord'Sith temple at times, of course, and wherever you were, you would remember childhood weaknesses. You knew that you told yourself so many lies then, but not as many as were told to you. Death is not merely a passage. Only the weak die. You are strong. You are not afraid. You're not. Not ever. Not ever?


End file.
